Mike Halen

Father. Bloomberg Intelligence Restaurant Analyst/Stock Guru. Hoya. Proudly blocked by @kocherlakota009. RTs are not endorsements & all opinions are my own.

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

Chipotle after reporting 0.5% SSS
(even though 2yr SSS dropped 270bps and adjusted net income fell 20%)

@HedgeyeFood $CMG

[Ariel Helwani @arielhelwani]

My word.

One more day.

I can run through a brick wall after watching this.

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

@MicahhParsons11 There's room on the Knicks bandwagon, even for an ex Cowboy

[David Henkes @davidhenkes]

Wendy's is rolling out a blue color motif at its new #restaurants (starting overseas) as it builds out a more digital-forward concept. Blue is meant to signal "digital" to the consumer.

It's definitely a change; so many #QSRs use red.

How we feeling about the look/color?

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

Proud to say I was @HoyasFB wedge breaker for each of my 4 years on the hilltop

[Coach Dan Casey @CoachDanCasey]

Remember the Wedge on Kickoff Returns??

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

@DudespostingWs Nice hook shot by the kid, dad taught him right

[McFranchisee @McFranchisee]

Unfortunately, this is my worst fear, and it’s happening massively across the nation at an alarming rate.

My weakest competitors occupy some great sites. Now that they are closing, it brings in a hot new concept.

I love when weak competitors are my neighbors. I don’t want them to close.

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

@davidhenkes @jonathanmaze He's talking his book. Inflation hits independents harder.

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

@ZodiacCapital33 @HedgeyeFood Dont forget the sloppy bowls! Big difference between the look of my Cava bowl vs. Chipotle

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

That's a 2013 burrito. Now they're half the size and cost twice as much

[Chipotle @ChipotleTweets]

everything you want, wrapped up in one big burrito.

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

@adamscrabble That was the first one. Garbrandt was never the same after those 2 fights.

[internet hall of fame @InternetH0F]

Dude was horrified with the monster he had created

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

6mm AUV he says. If they were doing half that they'd be insane to franchise even one store.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Tiger Global just valued a bagel shop at $300 million. And the math actually makes sense if you stare at it long enough.

PopUp Bagels started in 2020 out of a kitchen in Westport, Connecticut. Adam Goldberg was baking bagels for neighbors during the pandemic. Five years later, Tiger Global closed a deal in late March that values the company at 5x what it was worth five months ago.

The unit economics are what caught Tiger's attention. Average transaction over $24. Five bagel varieties. Three schmears. 55 total SKUs while competitors run 200-300. Stores are 1,000-1,200 square feet. Each location hires 10-15 employees instead of the 50-60 a typical QSR needs. No ice machines. No soda fountains. No fryers.

They don't sell individual bagels. You buy packs of three, six, or twelve. You grip, rip, and dip. That constraint does two things simultaneously: it raises average order value above the threshold where a small-format store prints money, and it creates a ritual that photographs well. Every customer becomes a content creator.

The franchise math: $330K-$810K to open, $35K franchise fee, 6% royalty. They've signed 300 franchise units with fewer than 15 operators. That's roughly 20 stores per operator. Experienced multi-unit franchisees running large territories, not first-timers buying a single shop. About 30 locations open now, targeting 100 by end of 2027.

Celebrity investors include Paul Rudd, JJ Watt, Michael Phelps, Michael Strahan. Stripes bought a majority stake in 2023 and brought in a real CEO, Tory Bartlett, in late 2024. Adam Sandler has a dedicated phone at one of the New York shops to call in orders. They literally call it "the Sandler Phone."

Here's what Tiger Global sees. The same firm that backed Meta, invested in OpenAI and Waymo, has been exiting 85+ companies from its most recent fund to concentrate on fewer, higher-conviction bets. They looked at a bagel company and decided it belonged in that concentrated portfolio.

The $300 million number only works if you believe 300 franchise locations actually open and hit the projected unit economics. At an estimated $6M revenue per location and 18% margins, 100 operating stores would generate roughly $108M in systemwide profit. At 300, you're approaching the kind of numbers that make $300M look cheap.

The real question is whether the hype survives national scale. PopUp Bagels built its brand on scarcity, long lines, and social media energy. Every franchise system in history has faced the tension between exclusivity and expansion. Levain Bakery, funded by the same firm Stripes, is the closest comparable, and it stayed small.

Tiger's betting the ritual travels. That the 1,100 square foot format, the five-SKU simplicity, and the $24 average ticket create something that works in Tampa the same way it works in Greenwich Village.

If they're right, this is the most capital-efficient restaurant concept of the decade. If they're wrong, it's a $300 million lesson in the difference between a brand and a business.

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

@MichaelAArouet Ketchup?! Nasty

[David Henkes @davidhenkes]

A smart promotion idea: aiming deals at gas price relief. A couple of good promos here but I really like the one that explicitly ties the discount to the average cost of gas in each state.

A reminder that every 50 cent increase in the price of a gallon of gas takes $69 billion out of consumers' pockets - and a good amount of that would have otherwise been spent at restaurants.

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

@MattForVA @Problematarian Um Sysco had a 17% US market share before this deal

[Mike Halen @mikehalen]

@HedgeyeFood Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that read that abomination of an S1. Incredible onions to build 100 stores and say you'll figure out how to make store level profit later. And people bought it.